


Therapy

by sal_si_puedes



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Harvey Gets Therapy, M/M, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 11:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4099159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_si_puedes/pseuds/sal_si_puedes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As we all know, season 5 will see Harvey in therapy. His therapist is Dr. Paula Agard. This is what I think should happen with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Therapy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [naias](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=naias).



> I simply had to. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Of course, this is for [naiasf](http://naiasf.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> [A/N: I have no idea how therapy works or what therapists would or wouldn't say/do. All made up.]
> 
> I'm [sal-si-puedes](http://sal-si-puedes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. Cone and say "Hi!"

„Harvey.“

Harvey looks the blonde woman over from head to toe and back and comes up with a brief first assessment, which he knows is pretty damn accurate. Mid to end thirties, slim, elegant, proud of her achievements, intelligent, comfortable with her sexuality, self-assured.

“I’m Dr. Paula Agard. Please call me Paula.”

“Dr. Agard,” Harvey nods curtly and stares he straight in the eyes. “Please call me Mr. Specter.”

She recovers quickly, he has to give her that. She only blinks once and the shake of her head is almost imperceptible. Almost.

He walks over to the suite of furniture in the middle of the room and sits down in one of the armchairs, crossing his legs.

“Mr. Specter. I understand,” Dr. Agard says and picks up a clip board before she sits down opposite of him, “that you are here because you’ve been having trouble giving your usual top performance at your job lately and—“

“I am here,” Harvey interrupts testily, “because Jessica Pearson is forcing me to be here. That’s the only reason I am.”

“I see.” The woman nods and makes a note on her clipboard. Harvey’s hands itch to snatch it from her fingers and fling it across the room like a fucking frisbee.

“I doubt that.”

“Why do you think you’re here then?”

Harvey casts a pointed look at his wrist watch.

“I already told you that.”

“Okay,” Dr. Agard smiles. “Then why do you think Jessica is forcing you to be here?”

 _Because she’s a vicious, sanctimonious, self-righteous snake,_ Harvey thinks. _Because she has it in for me._

“Because she wants me to open up and admit that I am in love with my assistant.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Good.” Her smile broadens and her pen flies over the paper on her clip board again. Harvey pictures himself smashing it over her head. “Now that we have that out of the way, what would you like to talk about?”

“Nothing.” He’s not falling for that. He’s not.

“Okay.” Still smiling she leans back in her chair, crosses her legs as well and lets her clip board sink down into her lap.

“Okay.”

The following fifty minutes are the longest of Harvey’s life but when the clock strikes five he rises from his chair, gives Dr. Agard a short fake smile and leaves.

The next week he comes prepared. When she asks him what he’d like to talk about he launches into a lengthy exegesis on the last baseball season and the Yankees’ latest purchases. It puts each and every filibuster that has ever been held to shame and the hour simply flies by.

The week after that Harvey talks about music. Then about suits, about cuts, different material, wool versus linen, the merits of a fine tie. The following week it’s movies, then stock-option back-dating, and when Dr. Agard clears her throat after the first stanza of his Ode to Scotch in week seven he merely rises an eyebrow. He can’t help but admire her a little, her patience and composure. He’d have throttled himself ten minutes into his Hymn to Miles Davis in week two.

“Harvey,” Dr. Agard says when he falls silent.

“Yes.” He’s not going to make it easy for her. He’s not.

“So you’re not in love with your assistant.”

It’s a statement, not a question.

“No. I already told you that.”

She nods and lays her clip board down onto the coffee table, face down. “Yes, you did.”

“Yes, I did.”

With an annoying little smile on her lips she tilts her head and tries to lock eyes with him. He doesn’t let her.

“Have you ever been in love, then?”

“Many times.” Now he decides to catch her gaze and to hold it. To hold it. Until she looks away. Only she doesn’t.

“Do you want to talk about that?”

“No.” As if she doesn’t know.

“Okay.”

Harvey nods and keeps staring at her. He’ll be damned if she doesn’t blink first.

After what seems like an eternity she finally does break eye contact, a little, slightly exasperated sigh on her lips.

“Okay, Harvey,” she says, picking up her clip board again. “I think that we’re done here. I think that today was your last session.”

“Good.” Harvey nods and leans back against the back rest. “So you give up.”

“I’m not giving up, Harvey,” Dr. Agard smiles. “I just think that there is nothing going on in your life that I can help you with.”

“No, you can’t.” 

The silence that follows feels incredibly uncomfortable and Harvey shifts in his chair. Forty five more minutes to go.

“No,” she echoes. “I can’t.”

She even has the impertinence to raise an eyebrow. The need to hit something, to scream burns in Harvey’s throat and he digs his fingertips into the tense muscles of his upper thighs to keep his hands from balling into fists and slamming down onto the arm rests. He fights the urge to swallow and keeps his breathing as even as possible.

When Dr. Agard doesn’t say anything, Harvey turns his head and looks out of the window. 

“No, you can’t.”

He doesn’t know why his throat hurts so much or why his voice sounds so hoarse. He realizes, though, that there is a part of him, a tiny hidden part, that had hoped that she would be able to help, that she would be able to make it all go away, to make everything all right again. She is a goddamn shrink, after all, even though she clearly sucks at her job.

“Nobody can.”

He hadn’t meant to say that. But now it is out there, now it is hovering in the air between them and it is taking up more and more space with every second that passes. It doesn’t go away, no matter how hard Harvey keeps staring out of the window. He knows that he has to blink eventually but he tries to avoid it for the longest time.

He clears his throat, turns his head away from the window and towards Dr. Agart again but he proceeds to stare at his hands in his lap. They look beautiful, alien somehow. There is an emptiness between them, an emptiness that fills the vales between his fingers to the brim. His palms burn with the need to touch and he wishes there was a bowl of icy water or at least a faucet he could turn on.

When he feels his fingers running through his hair, the fingers of both of his hands, he closes his eyes for a moment. He hadn’t meant to do that. He doesn’t mean to bury his face in his hands either, not even for that fraction of a second that he actually does.

“Harvey.” Dr. Agard’s voice hazily sifts through the fog in his brain and he blinks before he looks up. “What is wrong?”

“There’s—“ He swallows around that stupid lump in his throat before he can speak again. “There’s nothing you can do.”

She just tilts her head the tiniest bit and leans a little forward as if she wants to reach out for him.

He can’t have that, can’t give her that, so he straightens his back, tugs at the hems of his jacket, fumbles with his sleeves and adjusts his cufflinks. After a brief glance at his wrist watch he shakes his head and speaks again, his eyes still cast down.

“No, if the person you—the person most important to you is marrying someone else, there is not much to be done, is there?”

There, he said it. He said it to a shrink. He said it to _Paula_. He can’t believe he did that. He runs his fingers through his hair again and shakes his head.

“Donna is getting married?” _Paula_ asks, her voice calm and almost incidental.

“No,” Harvey whispers, his throat closing up again. “No, I’m not talking about Donna.”

“I know,” Paula says after a short pause. “You’re talking about—“

“No,” Harvey says, looking up and searching for her eyes. “Please don’t.”

He takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his hair a third time. And for a third time he shakes his head in disbelief.

“Have you considered talking to him?” Paula asks and Harvey shakes his head again.

“No,” he murmurs and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He steeples his hands and huffs. “Why would I do that?”

“He might feel the same.”

That suggestion is more than ridiculous and it makes Harvey snort. 

“Yeah, sure.” The bitterness in his voice tastes stale on his tongue and he can’t believe he’s still here. “I’ve got to go,” he says and rises from his chair.

“Your time isn’t up yet,” Paula says and rises as well. Why is she still smiling at him, even more broadly than before?

“I don’t care,” he says and holds out his hand. “I have to go. Now.”

“I know,” she says and shakes his hand. “Goodbye, Harvey.”

He briefly nods his goodbye before he turns around and leaves her office. 

Later, he won’t remember if he took the stairs or the elevator. He won’t remember what he did with his coat – if he left it there, forgotten, if he put it on or if he carried it over his arm. (He left it there, forgotten.) The first thing he does remember, later, much later, when he lies in Mike’s bed with Mike asleep in his arms, when Mike’s skin is warm against his and his breathing a faint touch against his throat, is climbing out of the car in front of Mike’s building.

He remembers being drawn up the floors to Mike’s door like a bar of iron by the strongest magnet there is and he remembers the look on Mike’s face, his cheeks sticky and his eyes red and puffy, when he opens the door for him.

“I left her,” is what he remembers Mike saying, first thing after staring at each other for what feels like hours. “She’s gone. I couldn’t—I simply couldn’t—“

He remembers saying Mike’s name and Mike’s whispered reply of “oh god”. 

He remembers how he had thought his chest would burst and he remembers the desperation of their kisses and touches, the overwhelming need, and he remembers the taste of his own name on Mike’s lips, sweet and bitter as rich, dark chocolate.

The way they lie there together, Mike asleep in his arms and Harvey’s heart fluttering like a terrified bird, feels right. It feels like something he can’t quite believe is real just yet so he makes sure by turning his head and burying his nose against Mike’s temple, by running its tip through Mike’s soft hair. By taking a deep breath. By placing the gentlest of kisses against Mike’s soft, pale skin. By smiling against Mike’s sleeping face.

By closing his eyes.


End file.
